Commander a 'scapegoat' for Abu Ghraib

The former US commander of the prison at the centre of the Iraq abuse scandal today claimed she was being made a "scapegoat" for the abuses committed there.

Brigadier-General Janis Karpinski, who was in charge of Abu Ghraib prison, said in a radio interview that she had no control over the section of the jail where the abuses are believed to have taken place.

She was suspended from command of the 800th Military Police Brigade, following an army investigation, for failing to monitor operations at the jail closely enough and for failing to enforce discipline among her staff.

But today, speaking on the BBC's On the Ropes programme, Gen Karpinski repeated her assertion that she knew nothing about the abuse and sexual humiliation of prisoners.

"Having lived through the operations in Iraq, having briefed just about everybody in there in a senior leadership position, having been sent out to conduct press conferences and escort congressional delegations because of the extent of my knowledge and responsibilities and then to have somebody, very late in the game, just question my leadership abilities and other people follow suit - I believe I was a convenient scapegoat," she said.

She said she had no reason to visit the cell blocks where the detainees were photographed being abused and humiliated by prison guards, as they were run by US military intelligence. She was not even aware of a Red Cross inspection that reported on the abuses.

According to Gen Karpinski, the officers who took over part of the jail proceeded to "Gitmoize" the interrogation of prisoners - in other words, to model it on the techniques used at the Guantánamo Bay detention camp.

She said: "The interrogation operation was directed, it was under a separate command and there was no reason for me to go out to look at Abu Ghraib at cell block 1a or 1b or visit the interrogation facilities."

She also suggested that such practices were approved at a high level in the military, because, she claimed, on one occasion a senior officer advised her that detainees should be treated "like dogs".

She said the senior officer told her prisoners "are like dogs and if you allow them to believe at any point that they are more than a dog then you've lost control of them".

Several soldiers are facing courts martial over the allegations, which arose when dozens of what seemed to be "trophy" photographs appeared in the media. Their publication severely undermined the moral authority of the US-led coalition in Iraq.

The US military investigation of the abuse concluded that the soldiers involved had acted of their own volition, and that there was no evidence "of a policy or a direct order given to these soldiers to conduct what they did".

But Gen Karpinski suggested it would have been difficult for the soldiers to take part in the abuses - which often involved large numbers of prisoners - without the approval of a higher authority.

"I know that the MP [military police] unit that these soldiers belonged to hadn't been in Abu Ghraib long enough to be so confident that one night or early morning they were going to take detainees out of their cells, pile them up and photograph themselves in various positions with these detainees.

"How it happened or why those photographs came to the criminal investigation division's attention in January I think will probably come out very clearly at each individual's court martial."